In this masterful and funny short story collection by ZZ Packer, engaging but often isolated characters, many of them young African-American women, struggle with issues of identity. In Brownies, an African-American brownie troop summering at Camp Crescendo determines “to kick the asses of each and every girl in Brownie Troop 909,” when one of its members uses the N-word. “We’d seen them, but from afar,” says our narrator, the troop member nicknamed Snot. “Never within their orbit enough to see whether their faces were the way all white girls appeared on TV—ponytailed and full of energy, bubbling over with love and money.” Their anger and intentions are thwarted, however, when they make a startling discovery about the white troop. Misperceptions also figure in “The Ant of the Self,” the protagonist of which is a straight-arrow and somewhat aloof high school student at a mostly white high school, who is subjected to comments like “You stay away from those drugs, Spurgeon, and you’ll go far.” Coerced into driving his ne’er do well father to Washington DC to attend the Million Man March, Spurgeon and his father come to blows. Other stories feature a mistrustful Yale freshman who behaves less than compassionately when her sole friend comes out of the closet, and a repressed cross-eyed nurse who misguidedly tries to bring the word of God to her patients. Thought-provoking and wise, these are essential stories by an author with something to say and the talent to make us hang on to every word.

The short stories featured in this book, all by the same woman, are good reads. Almost none of them have very clear endings, but that doesn't detract from the quality of the story at all (in fact, adds to it).